The Night Watchman (2020)
By Louise Erdrich
HarperCollins, 397 pages
★★★★★
We can add Native
Americans to the list of people Donald Trump doesn’t care about. He’s trying to
end tribal recognition (on a technicality) for the Wampanoag tribe—the same folks
who helped the Pilgrims and are part of the First Thanksgiving story. It seems
their 381 acres of Massachusetts land stands too close to Trumpian Rhode Island
allies who want to build a casino and halt one being built by the Wampanoags. The
only way to do that is to remove their tribal status.
Coincidentally,
Louise Erdrich’s new novel showed up in my library queue as Trump’s latest
outrage was unfolding. The link? The Night Watchman is Erdrich’s
semi-biographical novel about the federal government’s attempt to dismember the
Turtle Band of Chippewas back in 1953. Erdrich, an enrolled Chippewa* tribal
member, has produced a work of historical fiction rooted in fact. The character
of Thomas Wazhashk (“muskrat”) is based upon her grandfather (Patrick Gourneau),
who spearheaded the struggle to stave off “termination” of the Chippewas’
tribal status in North Dakota. It was then, as now, a blatant attempt to seize
Indian land–all under the paternalistic rubric of making Indians more
“American” and allowing them to fend for themselves because they were allegedly
self-sufficient.
Thomas is the
book’s namesake character. He guards the jewel factory that makes precision
parts for watches and is one of the few employers of the reservation. The jewel
factory is real, as was Arthur V. Watkins, a U.S. Senator from Utah known for
being racist toward Indians. He sponsored the Congressional bill that
eventually terminated 113 tribes. Watkins was also a Mormon, a sect which comes
off badly in The Night Watchman.
Erdrich, a leading
voice in Native American literature, paints a rich culture that co-exists with
crushing poverty and lack of opportunity. This is a land of outhouses,
substandard housing, rampant alcoholism, hunting-gathering, horses, no
electricity, and patched up automobiles. Boxing brings status to some of the
young men, but lard on bread is sometimes a meal. For all of this, it is also a
close-knit community in which people look out for each other and help in any
way they can.
Edrich populates
her novel with memorable characters. Thomas and his wife Rose are blood kin to
the Paranteau family held together by Zhaanat and her daughter Patrice, as
Zhaanat’s husband is a violent drunk and another daughter, Vera, has gone to missing
in Minneapolis. Patrice is serious, smart, innocent, and beautiful. Men desire
her, including Lloyd Barnes, a Caucasian boxing coach, and Wood Mountain, one
of Barnes’ most promising boxers. The reservation is filled with colorful
individuals, including Wood Mountain and his mother, Juggie Blue; tribal judge
Moses Montrose; Thomas’ father Bibbon; the Pipestone family, and more.
Women are powerful
figures in The Night Watchman–few more so than Patrice. She might not
know about the birds and the bees, but she is determined and is nobody’s patsy.
Another character, Millie Cloud, is equally determined. She’s an introverted
Ph.D. student at the University of Minnesota, but she has the data to refute
the nonsense that the Chippewa were prosperous enough to survive without government
largesse. One might accuse Erdrich of trying a bit too hard to impose feminism
into her tale as the Chippewa are not matriarchal and the report attributed to
Millie in the story was, in real life, mostly authored by a man (Dr. David
Delorme). I shan’t nitpick, though, as I found Erdrich’s focus on women
refreshing. I also reveled in how those you least expect have proverbial hearts
of gold.
The Night
Watchman is a sprawling
tale with numerous dark turns. Not much good happens to Indians who end up in
cities, be it Fargo or Minneapolis. Erdrich also explores exoticism, an often-veiled
aspect of racism, which she explores through the various ways in which whites
simultaneously revile natives yet find them alluring. One plot device involves the
criminal sex trade, another a barely legal underwater act. At heart, though, The
Night Watchman is an inspirational David versus Goliath tale of plucky
survival. The reservation is also populated by ghosts. Native cosmology is sometimes
described as “thin,” meaning that the barriers between the natural and the
supernatural worlds are porous.** This has the potential to reinforce community,
a factor Senator Watkins hadn’t anticipated.
The Night
Watchman is an engrossing
read filled with memorable characters, humanity, and determiation. This will probably
be shortlisted for numerous literary awards and, no matter what it wins or
doesn’t, it is surely a highlight of the 2020 fiction season. It is also a
wakeup call. Indians are too often marginalized in discussions of American
racism. Perhaps it’s time for a Red Lives Matter movement.
Rob Weir
* The Chippewa are Anishinaabe peoples and are
sometimes referenced that way. They are also called Ojibwe or Saulteaux, depending
upon where they live.
** This often
remains the case even when Natives are nominally Christian. Through a process known
as syncretism, Christian theology is sometimes grafted onto indigenous beliefs.
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